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The Fairy Tale and Reality English 4577.02 (Folklore II: Genres, Form, Meaning, and Use) THE FAIRY TALE AND REALITY Spring 2015 18549 Prof. Dorothy Noyes WF 11:10-12:30 [email protected] 206 Denney Hall This course examines the history and uses of the fairy tale in the modern Western world. While most of us associate the fairy tale with magic and fantasy, here we consider the many ways in which fairy tales call us back to the "real" world. We'll see the fairy tale as a space through which subordinate actors (such as women, children, and poor people) negotiate dominant cultural constructions of reality, especially those relating to family life and economic success. We’ll look first at the oral wonder tale as the peasant’s guide to survival in a world where the rules are both imposed from above and unreliable. Next, we’ll see how oral tales are reworked in print and later media for diverse ideological and commercial purposes, creating prominent models of selfhood and success along the way. In turn, we’ll see that artistic appropriations of the fairy tale provide an opportunity to denaturalize, even break cultural scripts. In all these transformations, fairy tales explore the tension between three ways individuals can respond to the promise of modern society: playing the game to win, escaping it, and changing the rules. But what happens when the rules of the game are no longer clear or certain? In a group project we'll survey what has been happening lately to the fairy tale plot in popular culture. Course goals: 1. To demonstrate the distinctive character and social uses of formulaic narrative. 2. To trace the interactions of cultural genres and social history. 3. To help you examine the taken-for-granted cultural scripts that influence your own formulation of life goals and plans. This course counts as an elective in the Folklore Minor and the Folklore Concentration, both offered through the Department of Comparative Studies: see cfs.osu.edu/programs for more information. READINGS The following books have been ordered at SBX only, and are required: Tatar, Maria ed. The Classic Fairy Tales: A Norton Critical Edition. New York: W.W. Norton. 1999. 1 Alger, Horatio. Ragged Dick and Struggling Upward. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 1986. Rushdie, Salman. The Wizard of Oz. London: British Film Institute. 1992. In addition, I have ordered a few copies of the following book, but you may also download it in PDF chapters through the library catalogue: Mathias, Elizabeth, and Richard Raspa. Italian Folktales in America. The Verbal Art of an Immigrant Woman. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. 1985. The remainder of the readings listed on the syllabus are available online. Those marked “Carmen” will be under Content on the course site. Those marked “Library” can be found online through the library catalogue by searching the journal title. (Note that journals are sometimes in multiple repositories depending on the article’s publication year.) COURSE REQUIREMENTS All requirements must be completed for a passing grade. Showing up-preparing-participating 20% Pop quizzes and pre-class writings 25% Class wiki participation and group presentation 25% Paper 30% Showing up. You won't pass without doing so. If you must miss a class, you should arrange to get the notes from a fellow student. You may not make up work missed due to absence except in documented cases of illness, etc. Four unexcused absences automatically result in a final grade of F. Preparing. You're responsible for reading this syllabus and for checking both Carmen and your OSU email regularly. I will post updates for each session under Discussions in Carmen before each class, including advice on accessing the readings and a general précis of what we'll be doing. Note that schedules and readings are subject to modification. Readings marked "Extra" are optional, for those of you wishing to pursue a topic further. The Ohio Board of Regents prescribes a 2:1 ratio of out-of-class work to formal instructional time. In other words, you should expect to devote an average of 5 1/2 hours a week of study time to this course. Give the readings adequate time: some may be deceptively simple, but the details matter, and some are more opaque. Please also give regular attention--say once a week--to the course wiki. Given the complex timetables we all observe under semesters, it would be an excellent idea to schedule regular blocks of time to study for this course. 2 You will need to bring the texts to class, either in hard copy or on an easily manageable device. You'll also need pen and paper in case we decide to write something. Participating. Class time under semesters is precious. You need to be on time. (If you have a tight connection between classes, please let me know this so I can bear it in mind.) You need to be awake. You need to be engaged. It is advisable to take notes both on the readings and on class discussion! A successful course is a group effort. Students in this course come from a wide range of majors and backgrounds and have a variety of insights to offer. Feel free to speak up from your own experience and/or disciplinary perspective. Many students will have no previous experience with folklore courses: thus if you are confused, other people undoubtedly are too. There are no stupid questions. Pop Quizzes and short writings. These will be graded ✓ or plus or minus. I am trying out this approach in lieu of the previous midterm and final exams, in the hopes that it will be sufficient to keep you reading and thinking. Class wiki and group presentation. We will work together to locate the fairy tale plot in the culture around us, in both obvious and less obvious places. All through the semester you'll be asked to contribute your observations to a class wiki. Once we come up with a general classification of the contemporary forms of the fairy tale plot, we'll work in small groups to describe them further. Expect to check in with the wiki about once a week. Paper. In connection with the class project, you'll write a paper (about ten pages) on some interesting case of the fairy tale plot in contemporary culture. Note: The classroom wiki, any powerpoints or handouts from the group presentations, and your individual papers will be deposited in the OSU Folklore Archives and made available to researchers as part of an ongoing project on the transformations of the fairy tale in contemporary society. Your name will be recognized and you'll be making a contribution to scholarship. SCHEDULE Jan 14 Introduction. Paying attention to the taken-for-granted PART ONE: ORAL STORYTELLING IN PEASANT COMMUNITIES Jan 16 What are fairy tales about? A first look Read Mathias and Raspa, Introduction, 3-20 Mathias and Raspa, Märchen: read the tales "Barbarina and the Black 3 Snake,” “The Cats Under the Sea,” “The Ducks That Talked,” and “Margherita.” Jan 21 The fairy-tale formula: Propp's functions Read Propp, Vladimir. From The Morphology of the Folktale, 1928. In Tatar 382- 387. AND bring the Mathias and Raspa tales in again. Extra Holbek, Bengt 1989. “The Language of Fairy Tales.” In Kvideland, Reimund, and Henning K. Sehmsdorf, eds. Nordic Folklore: Recent Studies, 40-62. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Carmen. Jan 28 Performance, transmission and oral form Read Falassi, Alessandro. “Cinderella in Tuscany,” 1980. Carmen. Jan 30 Men and women in context: Appalachia Read Sobol, Joseph Daniel. “Jack in the Raw: Ray Hicks,” 1994. Carmen. Lindahl, Carl. “Two Versions of "Rawhead and Bloodybones" from the Farmer-Muncy Family.” Journal of Folklore Research 38(2001, 1/2): 55-67. Carmen. Extra Lindahl, Carl. “The Uses of Terror: Appalachian Märchen-Telling, Folklore Methodology, and Narrator’s Truth.” Fabula 47 (2006): 1-13. Carmen. Feb 4 Circulation, variation, and ecotypes Read Tatar 101-137: Cinderella versions Mills, Margaret. “Sex Role Reversals, Sex Changes, and Transvestite Disguise in the Oral Tradition of a Conservative Muslim Community in Afghanistan,” 1985. Carmen. Feb 6 Scarcity and abundance Read Grimms, “Clever Gretel." Carmen Del Giudice, Luisa. “Mountains of Cheese and Rivers of Wine: Paesi di Cuccagna and Other Gastronomic Utopias,” 2001. Carmen. Pellegrini, Angelo. “The Discovery of Abundance.” From The Unprejudiced Palate, 1948. Carmen. 4 Feb 11 Getting ahead and getting away: mobility and migration Read Grimms, “Godfather Death.” Carmen. Mathias and Raspa, Märchen: “The Gourd of Blood” and “The Three Brothers and the Fig Tree” Browse Mathias and Raspa, part I, “Background” and part III, “Narratives of Personal Experience" Feb 13 Solidarity and social conflict Read “The Green Bird,” “Giuseppinu,” “The Virgin Mary’s Child.” 2004. In Zipes, Jack, ed./tr. Beautiful Angiola: The Great Treasury of Sicilian Folk and Fairy Tales Collected by Laura Gonzenbach. New York and London: Routledge. Carmen. Mangione, Jerre. “Annicchia and the Baron.” From Mount Allegro, 1942. Carmen. Extra Schneider, Jane 1989. “Rumpelstiltskin’s Bargain: Folklore and the Merchant Capitalist Intensification of Linen Manufacture in Early Modern Europe.” In Weiner, Annette and Jane Schneider, eds. Cloth and Human Experience, 177-213. Washington, DC: Smithsonian. Carmen. Due 1-page reflection on the Sicilian tales Feb 18 Storytelling and social power Read “The Man Who Had No Story.” Two Irish versions: from County Cork, 1933, and from County Donegal, 1965. Carmen. Ramanujan, A.K. “Towards a Counter-System: Women’s Tales,” 1991. Carmen. Feb 20 TOLKIEN DAYS No class, but please attend what you can of "There and Back Again: Tolkien in 2015," organized by the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies and running all day Friday and Saturday.
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